


And the Word for ‘Unchanging’ is ‘Death’

by lnologram



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Red Hood: Lost Days
Genre: Gen, Self-Reflection, The Memorial Case, set during Lost Days because I’m a sucker for pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 04:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15788943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lnologram/pseuds/lnologram
Summary: Slowly, Jason rises. He feels weightless, unreal in the face of something so impossible. One foot in front of the other. He comes to stop in front of the glass case displaying a Robin costume.HisRobin costume. There’s a memorial here forhim.





	And the Word for ‘Unchanging’ is ‘Death’

It’s been years, and Jason has been through a lot. Dying, for one. Resurrection, a car accident, a coma. Amnesia. The Lazarus Pit. Training with the League, and anyone Talia can find that she deems a worthy teacher.

None of it, though, could possibly erase _Bruce Wayne_ from his mind. No matter how much it’s tried. Jason’s only in Gotham in between terrorist playdates, doing small errands on the side. He doesn’t want to call them ‘missions,’ it reminds him too much of Batman for that, but – jobs. Quests. Something to fill the time. A little brutal, a little bloody, but damn if it doesn’t feel satisfying to put a bullet into a scumbag’s head and know that they’ll never hurt someone else ever again.

It’s this reason, and this reason alone, that he’s back in Gotham, hunting down a weapons trafficker. But his leads have gone cold, and he needs some computer power to pick it back up again, and not anything he can get at the library or with an average Starbucks wifi connection. No, this requires something a bit more militaristic. Something like a Batcomputer.

Jason times it carefully. If Bruce is smart (which he is), he’ll have changed all the codes since Jason was gone. But all the smarts in the world can’t accommodate for the fact that Bruce is a creature of habit, which means that Jason should easily be able to ascertain if Bruce still has his usual schedule with a mere few days of stalking. Monitoring. Same thing, really.

He chooses eleven AM. It’s quiet, near the middle of the day; Bruce’s newest pet Robin will be at school, Alfred will be in the city running errands, and Bruce himself will be sleeping, whether in the Manor or in a Wayne Enterprises meeting. Which means that the Cave is empty.

It takes him fourteen seconds to hack through the electronic lock to the Cave. Bruce’s security has gotten better over the years, and Jason has to give the old man credit for that. He walks past the old trophies, acknowledging just how time capsule-esque this place is. It looks like it did when he first came here. The giant coin, the dinosaur… The Batmobile has gotten an upgrade, though, and Jason allows himself the luxury of giving it a cursory check-over to see what changes Bruce made after Jason’s bomb under the fuel line several months back. He’s always had a weakness for cars, and even with a couple minutes spent admiring the new armouring, he’s well within his time limit. He considers causing mischief, moving everything just five inches to the right, but that’s his senseless antagonism tempting him, and he doesn't have the time. No, he’ll just do what he needs to, save the information to his USB drive, scrub the security feed, and then leave it all exactly as he found it. Bruce will never know.

He gets to the computer and it’s already booted up. Is the Batcomputer ever truly shut down? It’s nothing to hack through the log-in and he plugs in his USB drive and runs the script he’d coded before he left his safehouse, letting it sift through all the information in Bruce’s files to pluck out what he needs. With that running, he leans back and swivels the chair, looking around the Cave. It’s dark, it’s gloomy, it’s utterly unchang—

_What is that._

Slowly, Jason rises. He feels weightless, unreal in the face of something so impossible. One foot in front of the other. He comes to stop in front of the glass case displaying a Robin costume. _His_ Robin costume. There’s a memorial here for _him_. What…?

His foots nudges the base of the glass, and he glances down, looking away from the empty green mask that carries too many memories.

**IN MEMORY OF JASON TODD: A GOOD SOLDIER**

A good soldier. Is that all he was? A good soldier? Had he not been a son? A partner? Was all that he had been, been reduced to how well he could perform his task as a tool in Bruce’s unending war? He can see his reflection in the glass, a grown man superimposed over that empty mask. Empty, empty – just as he had been, dead and buried; just as he had been, vacant from Bruce’s heart.

He hadn’t realized he’s been shaking until there’s a loud noise and pain shoots up his arm. He’s put his fist right through that solid glass. Blood drips from his hand, his wrist, where the sharp shards have dug in and scraped. He pulls away, carefully, picking the glass out of his skin and letting it drop to the floor. Ping. Ping. He stands there, shaking out his arm, blood droplets flying and Jason doesn’t care that he’s leaving his DNA everywhere. He doesn’t care. All he can see is the memorial in front of him and just how much of an insult it is.

He turns away, returns to the Batcomputer, pulls out his USB stick and pockets it. He has to leave. He has to leave now, before he does anything more. He doesn’t get more than three steps towards the door.

It’s not enough.

He whirls around with a scream, a cry of rage and hurt and agony, and he rushes towards the memorial again. A solid kick and the rest of the glass shatters, catching the fluorescent light as it rains down to the floor, the stand the suit is on breaking and throwing cloth and armour to the ground. Jason takes a deep breath, staring down at it. He leans over and picks up the tiny domino mask. It wouldn’t fit him now. He was so small. So small and so young and so, so dead. He should be dead. This memorial proves it. He should never have come back alive.

He puts the domino in his pocket and leaves the cave. Fuck this, he’s leaving Gotham. It’ll only take half an hour to drive to Gotham International Airport, and he can get a plane away from this black hole of a city. Maybe even off the goddamn continent. He needs away from Bruce _fucking_ Wayne and every ugly, awful emotion he stirs in Jason’s chest.


End file.
